/ / Binzuru + Mt Fuji

Binzuru + Mt Fuji

About a month ago, Nagano celebrated its annual Binzuru Festival (the summer parade equivalent of Morioka's Sansa Odori Festival). It's a very culturally flavoured festival, where the streets throughout the city are closed to make way for hordes of dancers. To think that they danced like this for hours on end...

Check out the videos below to see this very Japanese event. (I'm told that what they sing kind of translates to "Let's Dance"!)





It was great seeing the kids getting into it too:



Last month there was also the mammoth challenge that Michael, Michie and I set for ourselves: the climbing (and conquering) of the highest mountain in the land, Mt Fuji. I'm not kidding when I say it was a long climb. We started our main climb at 9pm on the Thursday night and didn't get back down to the bottom until around 4pm the next day. More than anything, it was a great mental challenge, full of frustration, joy, frustration, a cool English chick, and more frustration.

A picture says a thousand words, and I so don't feel like writing an essay, so I'll let the photos do the talking. Click here. (Make sure you've got the "Info On" option to read the captions.)

When we got to the bottom, Michael and I opted for some ice-cream. And somehow, ice-cream made everything seem okay again.

5 comments:

  1. kezza9September 8, 2008 at 8:49 PM

    Brendan,you have some great photos,what a great thing to have done.Maybe your mother and I could do it one day HAHAHA,I crack myself up sometimes

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  2. MotherSeptember 10, 2008 at 8:15 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. MotherSeptember 10, 2008 at 8:22 PM

    Yep!! Kerry is going to piggyback me!!! Why did you feel sick? Was it lack of oxygen?

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  4. foodpsychoSeptember 11, 2008 at 10:57 PM

    haha nice one kerry :)

    I think it was the lack of oxygen, though that normally goes to your head, not your stomach. Could also have been eating so much before the strenuous climb... but that egg/chicken/rice dinner was so good that I couldn't help myself.

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  5. MotherSeptember 24, 2008 at 2:55 PM

    I am at Yukos havingchawanmushi, tenakizushi, gomokuni and gomaae. She is going toread your blog later. I keep hitting the key that makes the keyboard turn Japanese!!!

    ReplyDelete

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